About Me

I have been doing genealogy researching for almost 20 years. I started out just researching my paternal grandfather's line and now I have over 1800 direct ancestors in my database. When I'm not doing family tree research I enjoy gardening, arts and craft, camping and hiking.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Keep in touch with your family

I have a story to tell everyone that might end up being long and rambling but there is a point at the end of this story, or should I say a new website for you to check out, so here goes.The first thing to remember is that I have a very, very large family and when I first started doing genealogy research everyone wanted information from me and thought that I would be a good "messenger" between different branches of the family who hadn't kept in touch but I was. So I spent months looking around for a website that I could set up for family members to keep in touch and keep family information posted for everyone to read. I was looking for something where only family members could access keeping everyone's information secure from all the eyes on the internet. I eventually found a website, I can't even remember the name now, but it was such a pain to set up and then after I got it partially set up I realized that I could only have 5 other people sign on, if I wanted to add someone new I had to kick someone off. Not a good situation if you are trying to promote family communication, can you imagine, "I'm sorry Aunt Gertie but I have to kick you off of our family site so Uncle George can log on". Obviously, I just quit posting on that site.But then yesterday I received an email about a website called Geni.com, I checked out the site and I fell in love. This is the site I was looking for all those years ago. I got so excited that I started entering all of my personal information so I can get my family member added right away.This site is such a nice site, even if you aren't really thinking about sharing with family members right now, start your page and keep it updated so you can eventually start inviting family members when you are ready. The amount of information that you can post here is amazing.There is a very expanded profile that you can fill out only the parts you want to. There is a section for family news, photos and tons of other stuff, you can also upload your family tree. Then you can invite your friends and family members to log on and keep in touch. There is one part that made me laugh on the profile and I added to my own, you can specify if you want you family members to be notified of your birthday, "well, of course", maybe I will generate some cards that way.So, here's what you should do, go to www.geni.com and enter your name and email. That will open your account. Once the home page comes up click on Update profile on the left and get to work.Check out this site and let me know what you think, I think that everyone will love it as much as I do.I'm sorry if this post seems a little giddy but I get that way when I have an excellent find.Good luck and happy hunting.

P.S. If anyone finds my other family sharing site can you let me know where I left it???

I've done quite a bit of research in this field. Found a much better family tree website. You can do research, build a family tree, and showcase your life archives in one place. Check it out www.arcalife.com